Such solutions are (at least in my opinion) very hard to read / understand.
–
fkerberAug 12 '12 at 21:29

Its a lot easier to indent when included in html files. Makes it easier to read in an ide, as the ide can easily treat the html and php separately. Easier to see where control structures start and stop. Symfony2, and Zend Framework docs even use the alternate syntax for php views. Thanks for the downvote though.
–
WayneCAug 12 '12 at 21:35

His solution is perfectly valid for simplicity's sake... You don't want to include an entire MVC framework or even a templating system for something like this, so the for loop is really the easiest/simplest way aside from just typing out all 20 option items.
–
Andrew MAug 12 '12 at 21:51